Adult learning is more than alternative education, self-help, self-study, or training. Self-directed inquiry can free you from the cultural traps of today’s postmodern world. When you think for yourself, you take control of your life. Intellectual ability and critical thinking soon become substitutes for paper credentials. Simply stated aggressive learning is the most practical guide to a passionately rewarding life.

Tuesday, December 18, 2012

A plethora of new books suggest America
has entered a state of rapid decline. Two recent works on this subject, both
heavily footnoted, are worthy of attention. One is by an elitist on the right
and the other by one on the left. In contrast, a third new book is full of
hope.

The first to consider is Coming Apart: The State of White American, 1960-2010
by sociologist Charles Murray, whose work I've been reading for years. He
refers to himself as a libertarian, although a better characterization might be
that he is an ideologue's ideologue. For decades he's argued in a subtle and
often guarded tone that some of us are just morally and genetically inferior to
others, and he has become rather adept at appearing to stumble accidently onto
his biases. In other words, his narratives contain a thinly disguised
philosophy that is implied rather than stated outright.

Coming
Apart
offers lots of good data, and the contents could make a really good book if the
author had been intellectually honest about what has driven us apart. Murray,
however, has never been quite smart enough to avoid the transparency of his biases,
even when they are cloaked in his data. He submits a two-pronged account of how
America is fracturing into enclaves of upper class and lower class, portrayed
as Belmont and Fishtown respectively. We are asked to pay no attention to the
cause. Instead Murray lays the book out so the unsuspecting will discover his predetermined
conclusions embedded in his statistics along with him. He wants us to ignore
the greed and lobbied power that have in effect looted the country from the top
down. He wants us to concentrate instead solely on the moral failings of
inferior folks and to recognize once again that big government is destroying
the moral fiber of America.

New
YorkTimes columnist David Brooks declared
Coming Apart the most important book
of the year and said he would be "shocked if there's another book that so
compellingly describes the most important trends in American society."
This should be tempered by realizing how easily Brooks is shocked. That Murray
does not want to discuss the reason for society’s coming apart is what is shocking.
For more on Murray's book, check out Joan Walsh's brilliant review at salon.com.

The second work is Why America Failed: The Roots of Imperial Decline by social critic Morris
Berman, who throws all subtlety out the window. He’s concerned not with moral
failings of the poor, but with what he regards as the mindless aspirations of
those we deem successful. He characterizes the New Deal not as a restructuring
of the economy, but as "a few concessions to the poor and working
class." He warns us that when hustling and technological innovation become
the purpose of life, there is no purpose, and he sees little hope for course
correction. According to Berman, we are a country where people throw their
lives away for toys. Our obsession with connectivity results in social isolation
as we destroy the planet through what amounts to disingenuous acts of trivial
pursuit.

Now contrast the views above with another
recent book, Abundance: The Future Is
Better Than You Think, by Peter H. Diamandis and Steven Kotler. They write:
"Humanity is now entering a period of radical transformation in which
technology has the potential to significantly raise the basic standards of
living for every man, woman, and child on the planet. Within a generation, we
will be able to provide goods and services, once reserved for the wealthy few,
to any and all who need them. Or desire them. Abundance for all is actually
within our grasp." They lay out their argument in nineteen impressive chapters.

So, we have here two cases for a
dystopian future due to moral failure and one utopian argument that, even if
such a future were possible, would require an ideological remaking of society that
goes far beyond simply offering a few concessions to the poor and the working
class. The first order of business is to favor work over capital, or Main
Street over Wall Street, and that would take an effort just short of a
political revolution.

Our dilemma comes to this: The only way
to a future worthy of our highest ideals is to get beyond our Stone Age
political mindsets, in which millions of people are so fearful that someone
else might get something underserved that they would rather see most have
nothing. The biggest obstacle to a bright future is adolescent politics. As I
advocate in September University, it
is time for adults to speak up or forever lose the opportunity to do so. What a
predicament: to choose spite or infinite possibilities.